Why do these scholarships make you jump through so many hoops just for $500?

[turtlerock]

<p>

@broncos1997

Besides, when you do the math, if you spend a 40 hour week at home doing nothing but applying for colleges, it’s likely that you will make more per hour than you will at any time in your entire life. If you can win just $5000 in scholarships, that extrapolates to a $260,000 salary for the year.

@turtlerock

Except they don’t actually EARN $260,000 just by applying to scholarships. So how does any of that make sense. “Yes, Son, apply to scholarships instead of trying to work part time because eventually, when you win one it would amount to earning you $100/hr that you put in for it. More than you’ll ever earn. Although you would have only made $200 applying for that scholarship during the few months you were waiting for it. But if you had a part time job for the last 3 months you would have made about $1,500 ($8/hr for 16hrs/wk at 12 weeks).”

@broncos1997

I’m not quite sure how you took my intent… nowhere did I even remotely suggest that applying for scholarships is somehow a viable productive job. My only point is that the ratio of work to probable reward is highly favorable, so even if you have to jump through a lot of "hoops, it’s likely well worth your time.

</p>

<p>Let me emphasize here:

@broncos1997

if you spend a 40 hour week at home doing nothing but applying for colleges, it’s likely that you will make more per hour than you will at any time in your entire life

</p>

<p>I think most would infer that the intent of that comment is that it is better to spend 40 hours a week searching for scholarships than it is to spend 40 hours a week working for a wage/salary.</p>

[broncos1997]

<p>Would you disagree? Keeping in mind that this all purely theoretical as the typical student doesn’t HAVE 40 hours a week to work a full time job, an assumption that I think most would have made.</p>

<p>Even though I never even meant for this to be taken as literally as it is, let me just point out that I specified “a 40 hour week”, not “40 hours a week”. Since there is obviously no reason to condense the entirety of one’s scholarship search into a single week, I think most would realize that the 40 hours is used simply because it is a common figure when discussing work and income. The $260,000 was preceded by “that extrapolates to”, not “once you’ve worked for a year”, a statement that clearly implies it was meant for comparative purposes (most people remember annual salaries as oppose to weekly) and not practical purposes.</p>

<p>A final point, you’re arbitrarily assuming that the OP happens to have a full time job to which to commit, and that to apply for scholarships one would be forced to somehow quit that job. Obviously a job has the infinite advantage of being stable and long term. But if we’re looking to add a new source of income while still comparing apples to apples, we would have to consider a job that only last for 40 hours; the same amount of time we’re hypothetically devoting to the scholarships search. That’s babysitting for two weeks, at best.</p>

<p>So I ask again, would you not agree that putting in 40 hours into a applying for scholarships would be well worth at least the effort spent working on a ONE WEEK job?</p>

[turtlerock]

<p>

Would you disagree?

IMO, yes.</p>

<p>

The $260,000 was preceded by “that extrapolates to”, not “once you’ve worked for a year”, a statement that clearly implies it was meant for comparative purposes

Like comparing earning more per hour in your lifetime while putting 2 hours into a scholarship vs working a realistic hourly wage? That doesn’t sound like apples to apples to me. Please stay consistent.</p>

<p>

A final point, you’re arbitrarily assuming that the OP happens to have a full time job to which to commit, and that to apply for scholarships one would be forced to somehow quit that job.

You must not be reading my posts. Not in order anyway. I never mentioned a full-time 40 hours/wk job until you used it. If I recall, I mentioned working a part-time job. Twice.</p>

<p>

So I ask again, would you not agree that putting in 40 hours into a applying for scholarships would be well worth at least the effort spent working on a ONE WEEK job?

Now you’re question contradicts the whole $260,000 scenario. If the student is using 40 hours in only one week, then no matter what, they will not be making the extrapolated numbers you’re hypothesizing. You probably should’ve just left out the whole hypothesis bit if you were wanting to have the rest of your comment taken in any serious regard. But alas, this is a forum and we’re all rightfully allowed to post as we please, even if a bit obtuse.</p>

<p>And for the record, no I wouldn’t agree because there is still the facet of probability. Even in the local ones mentioned earlier, there is still SOME competition which leaves the statistical analyses in ambiguity. Everyone will have one side or the other as to their chances on winning the funds, but I KNOW I will be making a monetary amount when working for an hourly wage. No ifs, maybes, or possiblys. You can put in 40 hours that week searching, writing for, and applying to scholarships in the $100-5,000 (I’m sure the $5,000 ones take at least a little more effort than the $100 ones, and even more competition for them still) range and you might come up with a hit. Or, you might not. There can (usually, depending on the scholarship, of course) be only one winner for the funds. The rest have to eat the time/reward ratio.</p>

[cap]

<p>Right. I too looked into local ones. Where do you live that has lots of scholarship offers just for local residents - and that not many local residents know about and apply to themselves?>></p>

<p>My DD ended up with around 15 local scholarships that covered 2 years of school. We lived in a small town so the odds were much higher than in the huge county we lived in when my youngest graduated.</p>

[ctinct]

<p>I think it is very worthwhile applying for local scholarships if you are , say, in the top 10% of your class, with good ecs. Sports is another hook that, at least in our town, can help a student to snag some scholarship money. </p>

<p>I would echo what a pp said about checking the guidance dept. sites of other schools in your area. We found a few that were not listed on my daughter’s school’s site. I would also suggest that sometime in the jr. year one should research which state credit unions and banks you might be eligible to join that also give scholarships. </p>

<p>Yes, it is a lot of work, but even if you only get one scholarship for $500 with ten hours work, the return on investment is still pretty good. And, you may just find out, as my daughter did, that a few of them may be renewable. She did not know that at the time she applied—the scholarships did not state this in the application. Also, if you do your research, you may find that some of the scholarships do NOT automatically go to the tippy-top applicants. We noticed this about a few of the scholarships that were given out at her awards night. They may have been looking for an improving gpa, overcoming hardships, etc., so it is important to target the scholarships you apply to. </p>

<p>Btw, my daughter’s smallest scholarship was for $250, but she treasured it as much as the bigger awards, because it was funded by the teachers at her elementary school</p>

[turtlerock]

<p>

@cap

We lived in a small town so the odds were much higher than in the huge county we lived in when my youngest graduated.

@ctinct

I think it is very worthwhile applying for local scholarships if you are , say, in the top 10% of your class, with good ecs.

</p>

<p>Another point then: what about those students who live in huge metropolitan areas with hundreds of thousands of kids/students? Unfortunately, the Local Rule cannot apply to everyone. So especially in those cases it may be more beneficial for the student to work a part-time or summer job. You’d think higher population would bring in more scholarships (basic rule of supply and demand), but it seems that the proportion of population difference is not directly relational or equal to the difference in scholarship funds alotted. Mediocre stats kid in a city with population 1,000,000? Good luck.</p>

[broncos1997]

<p>Given this unexpected debate, I suppose I can concede that my post was misleading and unclear. I assumed that anyone reading it would assume that my comment was purely for a frame of reference comparison. Clearly, I was wrong.</p>

<p>Really, the bottom line is that, in my opinion, if you’re a solid student (which most on these forums seem to be), then it’s well worth your time to apply for these scholarships, and that I think it would initially have a better payoff than find a job (but not in the long run). If you happen to hold a different view, then I really have nothing more to say, and I suppose we’ll just agree to disagree.</p>